Resurgent Remco Evenepoel Rockets Into Tour Second Place

Results are changeable, class is permanent. Yesterday, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s co-leader Remco Evenpoel looked ready to slip off the podium, dropping back on the Col du Haag before limiting his losses.

On Sunday, he sealed his first Tour de France mountain stage win at Plateau de Solaison, arguably the hardest climb of the whole race, and moved up to second.

Eleven kilometers at nine per cent average? No sweat. He knew every bend from riding the HC leg-hurter 20 times in preparation.

The only hanger-on to the Team UAE Emirates-XRG tandem of Tadej Pogačar and Isaac Del Toro, Evenepoel deftly trailed two attacks in the last kilometer from the Mexican before outsprinting the race leader. The world time-trial champion made it look a lot easier than it felt.

“For me, it’s a big step forward that I can follow this pace because it was a crazy hard pace,” he said post-race.

“Also you have to understand, I always get so many critics saying ‘he cannot survive deep climbs’ and this and that. It just feels amazing.”

“For me, this is the first proper mountain stage that I win from the GC group. So it shows that I’ve put a step forward and now I hope to keep this for the last week because it’s not over yet,” he added later.

Evenepoel is amazed to be finding his “best legs during this Tour”.

In doing so, as Jonas Vingegaard exited the race in unfortunate circumstances, the 26-year-old is primed to finish in second place – especially with Tuesday’s stage 16 time-trial on the horizon, which is likely to extend his 58-second advantage over third-placed Del Toro.

Pogačar bigs up Remco the rocket

Even the decade’s daunting man to beat is paying tribute. “Chapeau to Remco. Solaison is a 30-minute test climb and I think we did some of our best numbers,” Tadej Pogačar said afterwards.

“Remco sometimes just needs a bit of a morale boost and he is flying. Today he showed he is a rocket. He’s gonna be a pain in the ass next week.”

Speaking in his press conference for written press on Sunday evening, Pogačar noted that the stage was “not as demanding as yesterday [stage 14]” because they saved energy during breakaway bids sitting in the wheels:

“It was not fresh legs, but one big effort and he really excels in this. Today, we saw how good he is but we will see how it will be when there are more climbs to come in the same stage … I think he’s a big contender.”

Still dual leaders despite Lipowitz’s deficit

Evenepoel has been ahead of teammate and co-leader Florian Lipowitz since day one’s Barcelona TTT when he took off on the final climb.

Throughout smaller time gains and occasional drama in the last fortnight, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe have stuck to their guns that they have a dual leadership.

However, with Lipowitz fifth overall at 6:48 after finishing with Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM Team), 1:48 behind the Belgian, it begs the question: will Evenpoel be the sole leader now?

“No, I think we still maintain the dual leader approach. Of course Remco is closer on GC so we still need to maintain both as close as possible,” team chief of sports Zak Dempster told media, including Velo, outside their bus post-stage 15.

He observed that the first half of the Tour played to Evenepoel’s strengths, whereas Lipowitz is more of a diesel who has also shown he can perform in the mountains of its third week.

Evenepoel’s room to grow

Evenepoel himself acknowledged it was a big step forward to follow Pogačar’s pace on such a tough climb. Such a climb used to be one of his weaknesses. What has changed?

“He’s still young. I know he’s been a little while but he’s gone through a process of changing coaches and teams,” Dempster said. “You go back to the drawing board and try to improve bit-by-bit. With a good strategy, I think we’re seeing one of the best versions of Remco.”

“Once we get to Paris, we’ll find what the result will be. But we’re full of hope.”